It was meant to be a simple catch-up with a friend on a warm summer’s night.

So when New York native Silvano Orsi stopped by the posh Swiss hotel La Reserve in Geneva on Aug. 19, 2003, he had no idea his life was about to change.

Within hours, he would crawl from the hotel, assaulted and beaten to a pulp by the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, one of the richest men in the world.

Before the assault, the Italian-American Orsi was a businessman boasting a successful career as a Swisscom AG executive.

Today the 39-year-old is disabled, unable to work, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and constant nightmares and ineligible for disability benefits because he has not worked in the United States for 10 years.

“Every night I wake up screaming,” Orsi told The Post from Europe last week. “I have lost my privacy, my good name, my old life.”

For the past four years, Orsi has pleaded with the US government to help bring Sheik Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan – son of former UAE president and brother of the current ruler – to justice.

“No one has asked the Emirates why a member of their royal family would do such a horrifying and barbaric thing to an American citizen,” he said.

Orsi was sipping orange juice and chatting to a business associate in the five-star hotel restaurant when a stranger dressed in jeans stopped by his table and asked where he was from.

Orsi said he declined the man’s offer of a drink, saying he was sticking to juice.

Within minutes, the man sent a bottle of expensive champagne to the table.

“I turned around and politely waved thank you and left the bottle untouched,” Orsi said.

“I thought nothing more of it.”

Moments later, the man allegedly attacked Orsi, smashing his glasses, licking his face and neck, groping his genitals and throwing him to the ground before repeatedly whipping his face, neck and hands with the buckle of his belt in front of the restaurant’s shocked diners and staff.

The attacker screamed, “No stupid American or Italian is going to tell me what to do,” according to Orsi.

It was not until he had dragged himself bleeding to the hotel reception desk and pleaded for police that he became aware of his attacker’s identity.

“I was screaming for help,” Orsi said. “And they told me, ‘Well, sir, this a big client of ours, we are very sorry, but this is the son of the ruler of the Emirates.’ ”

Orsi said he was then detained in the hotel for four hours and denied medical attention as the hotel director and Emirates’ consul in Geneva allegedly offered him $15,000 to keep quiet.

Requests for comment to the Emirates Embassy in Washington were not answered.

A spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Orsi had contacted about the attack, said staff sent two faxes in 2004 to the US Department of State, forwarding concerns over the attack.

A State Department spokesman said the agency was looking into the issue.

Swiss officials announced last month that the sheik, 37, will be tried before a tribunal and could face up to two years in prison.